MICHAEL JACOBI

FREELANCE WRITER, EDITOR, & LAYOUT/WEB/GRAPHIC DESIGNER

EXOTIC FAUNA

GLOBAL NATURE, SCENIC & TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY

About

MICHAEL JACOBI
I'm an author and editor who also excels at design work for eBooks, journals, marketing and websites. Please email to discuss your publishing and marketing projects and visit my new web hone at MJACOBI.com.ABRIDGED BIO
I am the author of Animal Planet's Tarantulas, former proprietor of Chicago Reptile, Jacobi Herpetoculture, The Frog Sanctuary, The Living Terrarium and Spider Shoppe, Michael Jacobi's SPIDERSHOPPE and Tarantulas.com, and creator of The Tarantula Bibliography and ARACHNOCULTURE E-ZINE. I also am the former general manager (2007-2012) of Northwest Zoological Supply outside of Seattle. I am an author, photographer, naturalist, educator and breeder with vast arachnid and reptile experience. I now focus on nature travel and photography, and am fully retired from the exotic pet industry and my former roles in arachnoculture and herpetoculture. My 33 years as a seller and breeder of arachnids, reptiles and exotic pets have come to an end. I enjoyed a long career working with tarantulas, venomous snakes, boid snakes, geckos and dart frogs. Today, I spend my time traveling and doing field work. I currently am available as a freelance writer, editor, InDesign layout designer, or for graphic, web or marketing design projects.

EXOTICFAUNA.COM
For sixteen years Exotic Fauna had been my primary internet home. It has now been supplanted by MJACOBI.com. With a four decade immersion in both herpetoculture and arachnoculture, I've had many projects along the way. When I created ExoticFauna.com in 2000 I was still publishing my World of Atheris site, which was a web monograph on the African vipers of the Atherini tribe (e.g., bush vipers). In 2005, I launched The Tarantula Bibliography. I wanted to catalog all of the world's tarantula species while providing much more than found at the World Spider Catalog. Whereas the WSC was updated three or four times a year, I strived to revise the TB every month and keep much more current on revisions and newly described species. I also wanted to provide bibliographic citations that incorporated society journals and hobby publications and created a compendium of references. After eleven years, I do not have the desire to continue the project. Recently the new World Spider Catalog became a much better database-driven website, and I direct you there to keep up on changes in theraphosid taxonomy. The Tarantula Bibliography is now gone like the World of Atheris. Many hours were put into these resources, but eventually the effort wasn't something I chose to maintain.

TRAVEL & THE BTS
Since 2006, I have traveled the world in search of invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles and other exotic fauna to observe and photograph. Before then I did the same throughout the breathtaking and diverse terrain of the United States. My travels will continue and be documented by my trusty Nikons. However, I am now fully retired from herpetoculture and arachnoculture and do not wish to maintain The Tarantula Bibliography and other ExoticFauna.com features. The sliver of effort I shall maintain in the tarantula hobby is all directed to my work as British Tarantula Society Editor (Journal of the British Tarantula Society and the BTS Newsletter) and North American Coordinator. Writing and editing have always been my fortes. Click here for an abridged list of my publications. My involvement in the reptile hobby has completely ceased.

PHOTOGRAPHY

My photography is displayed at SmugMug. You may order prints directly via that site. If you wish to use any of my images in print please email me to discuss price and terms. I do not authorize the use of any of my images on websites, social media or any other non-print format. However, colleagues may request to use them in non-commercial lecture presentations. These are my "pro" photos.

SNAPSHOTS (@JACOBIPIX)

My favored social media is Instagram and I maintain a prolific account called @jacobipix where I share images from my world travel, plus all sorts of topics ranging from exotic fauna to tattoos to music to guns to food & drink to politics to whatever. I a nomad and am constantly traveling. Follow me for upcoming pix of Langkawi, Malaysia/Sarawak, Borneo February 2017. These are my "snapshot" images and are often taken with my iPhone 6S Plus, but I do post "proper (aka fine) photographs" to Instagram as well.

PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR

Photographers like to talk gear, just like guitarists or shooters, or any other group I imagine. In the photo above you see my two rigs resting streamside in a Sri Lankan jungle. Photography is about capturing light. Composition is the most important aspect that elevates a snapshot to a photograph. If you pay attention to the light angles and interesting framing of subjects, you can take great photographs with a smartphone. However, you can't get the depth of field necessary for the creepy crawly portraits I specialize in with an iPhone or point-and-shoot camera. Even top of the line point-and-shoots don't allow for an aperture smaller than f/11 or so. My tarantula, lizard & frog, etc. images are captured using a Tokina 100mm macro lens (for this lens my aperture is almost always at f/18 for small subjects and f/13 for larger snakes and such). This lens is a great value and high performer in 1:1 (life size) macrophotography, and the most important piece of gear I own. I couple it with a Sigma EM-140 ring flash, but others (including my good friend and superb photographer Chad Campbell) prefer dual mini-speedlights mounted on flexible arms. You can't capture great "macro" images with your DSLR's built-in pop-up speedlight! My primary camera body is a Nikon D500 and my secondary is a Nikon D7100. My workhorse lens for wildlife is a Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 and for doing scenery, street, travel and portrait photography I use the Nikkor 17-55 mm f/2.8 G ED. Neither are cheap, but both are worth every penny. If you are just doing portrait stuff the inexpensive Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8 G is excellent and I use it often for portraits of both wildlife and humans. For telephoto work I use a Nikon 300mm f/4 lens with a matching 1.4X teleconverter that I bought from Chad. This extends me out to 420 mm for my photography of birds and mammals, which is equivalent to 630 mm with my FX (AFS-C) cropped sensor camera bodies. Anything larger/longer would add too much weight to the already heavy bag I trek with into jungles or across rocky deserts, and most cost as much as a good used car.

MUSIC & GUITAR

My other life-long passion has been music. I started on violin at age 9 and then progressed to drums before settling on guitar. I have been a metal fan for decades and played loud electric guitar in a number of bands, but today I play acoustic guitar and play everything from my own compositions to bluegrass standards. I recently started a Soundcloud page for my original music that I will link here soon. I have a had a revival of interest in playing acoustic guitar and songwriting.

TREAT FUND

My nomadic and frugal lifestyle doesn't allow for many luxuries outside of those offered by the natural world and my occasional exotic travel. My "treat fund" gives those who appreciate my free content like blogs, articles and images a chance to treat me to a Starbucks or cocktail along the road. I greatly appreciate your generosity and will raise a cup or glass in your honor and post a pic of that toast on Instagram.

Footer Banner Section

Thank you for visiting my site. I appreciate everyone's support over the years.

Many of the past ExoticFauna.com features are now gone, but I hope you will